1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tape media control and more particularly relates to standalone computing system tape requests and a tiered media control policy to prevent inadvertent writes to tape media.
2. Description of the Related Art
The explosion of data created by e-business is making data storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. As data storage matters take precedence, two major concerns have emerged: business continuity and business efficiency. Business continuity requires storage that supports data availability so employees, customers and trading partners can access data continuously through reliable, disaster-tolerant systems. Business efficiency, where storage is concerned, is the need for investment protection, reduced total cost of ownership, high performance, and manageability.
Computer data is frequently stored in secondary, long-term storage devices such as disk drives and tape drives. Such data is often critical to the proper operation of various computer applications. While the data itself may have a very high priority, proper maintenance and preservation of the data through data backup and restore operations typically has a very low priority. Backup and recovery of data is often a lengthy process that requires significant bandwidth and server processing resources.
For tape storage applications, data is stored onto a magnetic tape medium, such as a metallic ribbon, within a tape cartridge using a tape drive. The tape medium conventionally is designed to include a plurality of tracks that are distributed across the physical width of the tape medium and run the physical length of the tape medium. A tape write head within the tape drive is typically capable of writing up to sixteen tracks at one time, starting at one end of the tape and moving along the length of the tape. When the tape write head reaches the end of the tape, the head is aligned over the proximate track set, the direction of the tape is reversed, and the write head writes an additional sixteen tracks in the opposite direction. This “serpentine” pattern may continue until all tracks have been written.
Tape drives are generally employed in two systems: automated tape libraries, and standalone or non-system managed tape drives. Automated tape libraries are known for providing cost effective storage and retrieval of large quantities of data. The data in automated data storage libraries is stored on removable tape media that are, in turn, stored on storage shelves or the like inside the library in a fashion that renders the media, and its resident data, accessible for physical retrieval by robotic arms often called accessors. Automated tape libraries are controlled by a virtual tape server that implements security policies, read/write policies, and the like.
A standalone system may be any computing system such as a server, desktop pc, or the like, with a tape media drive. Due to the capacity of tape media, which is currently approaching a terabyte, computing systems often employ tape media drives and tape media cartridges to perform backups. There are currently approximately 8 tape media types, each media type supporting a different function.
One example of a popular media type is a Write Once Read Many (WORM) tape media. WORM tape media is often useful for situations requiring an unalterable, digital copy of data such as insurance policies, legal documents, etc. WORM tape media is generally more expensive than other types of tape media. Inadvertent write operations to WORM tape media is costly because the WORM tape media cannot be reused or reinitialized.
The problem of inadvertent write operations to WORM tape media is most relevant to standalone systems because of human error. With a standalone system, a user must physically insert a tape media cartridge into a tape drive before using the tape media cartridge. Users are prone to errors, and in some cases may mistakenly place WORM tape media in the tape drive in place of another intended tape media. However, the standalone system has no operating system tape media controls for preventing inadvertent write operations. Inadvertent media insertion errors may similarly occur with other types of storage media.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an operating system apparatus, system, and method that enforces tape media policies for non-system managed tape media. The proliferation of new media types, combined with the irreversible write once characteristics of WORM tape media make such a system even more critical.